PT159.S3.Q19

PrepTest 159 - Section 3 - Question 19

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When plants are growing quickly, they take more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than they release into it. ███ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ████████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ███ ███ ████ ████████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ █████ █████

Stimulus Summary

The first two facts give us conditional relationships.

  • Plants growing quickly → take in more CO2 than released
  • Plants growing very slowly → take in less CO2 than released

Then we get a causal chain:

Substantial increase in amount of CO2 released into atmosphere causes temperature increase in tropics causes plants in tropics, on average, grow more slowly.

We're also told that the bulk of Earth's plants are found in the tropics.

Warning: It's tempting to think that "plants in tropics, on average, grow more slowly" triggers "when [plants] are growing very slowly..." in the second conditional. However, "grow more slowly" is a relative claim that doesn't clearly put the rate of growth into the absolute category of "growing very slowly." The plants in the tropics, even if they grow more slowly, could still be growing quickly, just not as quickly as they used to.

Anticipation

For some Most Strongly Supported questions, it's possible to connect statements in the stimulus together to produce a reasonable inference we might look for in the answer choices. Here, however, there are so many relationships presented that it's difficult to make a specific prediction before going to the answers. So we'll rely on process of elimination when evaluating the answers.

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19.

Which one of the following ██ ████ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██████

a

The amount of ██████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ██ █ █████████ ████████████ ████ ██ ██████

b

If the amount ██ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██████████████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ███

c

Plants in the ███████ ████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ███████ ██ ████████ █████████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████

d

If the plants ██ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ████████ █████████████ ██ █ ███████

e

Any increase in ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████ █ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████

Confirm action

Are you sure?